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I no longer feel this way.

Ex-bartenders, mind you, are allowed to be snooty about how they handle their waters. I, myself, hadn't had a hangover since high school. Then came last Sunday, the end of my first lost weekend. All across America, ministers were shaking hands with their parishioners while poor Bowman sat upright in a chair with damned monkey music playing in his skull. Feathers on his tongue. The very air sandpapering his neck.

My editor at Salon thinks my experience will be of educational value to those of you planning to paddle out into green rivers on St. Patrick's Day and get MacSkunked.

If my words are to serve as a talisman, you must first look to land far away from Ireland. The land of Ivan and Nyet -- Mother Russia.

I am plotting a new novel about a Russian in California. Listen, I tell you from professional observation that most citizens of the Emerald Isle drink like fishes, but the Irish are little boys compared with the Russians. They're cowards. Puppies. The comrades I once served could drink you so far under the table you'd be in the basement. I knew a Cossack who would go on weeklong benders, getting fed vodka intravenously while he huddled in an empty bathtub.

Now, I'm no stranger to hooch. But my drinking sympathies are in sync with the Irish. Blessed waters should be a gentle ocher color, the color of beer, whiskey and scotch. Or chestnut. Or liquid mahogany. But vodka is clear like water. How the hell can it have a hearty taste, let alone be good for you?

Yes, I drank like a fish, but I was still a virgin when it came to vodka. Yet I couldn't write a novel about a Russian in California without experiencing this Russian wetness myself. I had to do the research.

I had the occasion to learn the ropes from novelist Martin Cruz Smith, author of "Gorky Park." "This is how Russians drink vodka," he told me. I will share what he said.

Next page | "Do not breathe between the drinking and the eating"